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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24030367">A Day At The Cape</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliocat/pseuds/Heliocat'>Heliocat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Banana Fish (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cape Cod, Childhood Memories, Depression, Foreshadowing, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Holiday, M/M, Male Friendship, Memories, Photography, Promises, Roadtrip, Slow Romance, beach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:53:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24030367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliocat/pseuds/Heliocat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ash never wanted to return here. There are too many memories. Memories of Griffin. Memories of his past. However, he has at least returned here with friends to support him, and maybe with their help he can learn to enjoy Cape Cod again, at least for a little while.</p><p>He has a heart-to-heart with Shorter which contains some heavy foreshadowing and delves more into how I perceive his and Eiji's relationship, especially at the start. Kinda fluffy, kinda drabble-y, kinda playing with some of the pictures in the last few pages of the 'Angel Eyes' art book where they are essentially being tourists... just fleshing out parts of the story left open to interpretation really.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ash Lynx &amp; Okumura Eiji &amp; Shorter Wong, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Ibe Shunichi &amp; Ash Lynx, Ibe Shunichi &amp; Okumura Eiji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Work's I've Finished</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Day At The Cape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>These'll probably keep coming until my furlough ends and I have to return to the slog of 12-hour shifts... ha! At least it's keeping me occupied, and it's hopefully providing you lot with some entertainment too. This could be considered a sequel to my 'Truth or Dare' fic, I guess - the Cape Cod and California Road Trip days give you so much to play around with without deviating too far from the story :) There's also a scene that has been covered in canon. I kept it essentially the same, but tweaked the dialogue slightly. A couple of other things have been tweaked as well, mainly the furniture in the old house, just to suit my creative license.<br/>It's probably not as 'fun' as other fics I've done, but I like the idea of Shorter being perceptive of Ash's feelings, and of Ash having a friend he can talk to openly. I also wanted to write cute Eiji doing cute Eiji things.</p><p>Please note, anything written &lt;"like this"&gt; is Eiji talking in Japanese. I'm English, so I use British spelling. And it's rated T for some language and themes.</p><p>Many thanks to Akimi Yoshida for creating Banana Fish - this is a work of fanfiction, so I own none of the intellectual property.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was early morning, the weather perfect and the sun already rising to greet the day. Ash had slept poorly the night before; hardly surprising seeing as he was back in his childhood bedroom and wrestling with the mixed emotions that brought. He had tossed and turned in the bed all night, finding it hard to get comfortable, unable to switch off from the thoughts swirling in his brain. Everything here reminded him of Griffin, or of the abuse he had received as a child and, consequently, while you could argue it was self-defence, his very first murder. He could still see the scene clearly in his mind’s eye; the deep crimson of blood, a chill draught caressing his bare chest, goosebumps all over from an adrenaline rush, how he was shaking and crying, the sickening feeling of relief without remorse that, after a year of hell, it was all over… only it wasn’t, was it. That was just the fucking beginning.</p><p>Shorter was camped out on the rug on his bedroom floor, or at least he had been. His best friend had a habit of moving around a lot in his sleep. Ash had watched as he migrated around the floor as the night wore on. He had started off on a camping roll placed on top of the rug. He woke up at right angles to the mat, both legs under Ash’s bed, hugging the pillow, blanket half on-half off his torso.</p><p>“You’re on your side, so the weather will be fine today,” Ash said, noticing his friend stirring.</p><p>“Mmmmorning…” Shorter groaned.</p><p>“You sleep well?”</p><p>“Uuuurghhh…”</p><p>“You and me both, buddy.”</p><p>He wanted to leave, sooner rather than later, but unfortunately the truck they had driven here in had a worn-out battery. It had just about made it to the Cape before giving out entirely. They would not be able to restart the truck without a new one. The nearest shop was several miles away, and with it being the weekend it would be shut until Monday. They were stuck here for at least two more days. He only hoped it would take Golzine longer than that to track them down – it was inevitable he would send men out and, once he realised they were no longer in the city, the first place he’d think to look would be any known family or friends out of state.</p><p>Eiji, Max, and Ibe were elsewhere in the house. Max and Ibe had claimed Griff’s old room for their stay. Max had been strangely quiet since they arrived; Ash wasn’t sure if he was just tired from the events over the last few days combined with the long drive, or if was mourning for his friend. There were a lot of Griffin’s things in this house after all – he had grown up here too, and his impact on the place was undoubtedly far stronger than Ash’s had been. One of the doorframes had a collection of pencil marks at progressively higher heights, for instance - a child’s growth chart. Griff’s mother had started it with Griff, and it became an annual ritual they followed together on their respective birthdays. Ash’s cut off abruptly at age 4, after Griff had left for the army, but Griff’s continued up the door until he was 17. There was no adult to measure Griffin, but Ash could remember watching him mark his own height, awkwardly scribbling with the pencil at the crown of his head, laughing when he saw how little or how much he’d grown in a year. He was slightly miffed to see that, even though he was now 17 himself, Griff’s final mark was about two inches above him. After they had examined Griff’s old photo album together and identified Abraham, Max had spent a couple of hours yesterday just browsing it alone thoughtfully, then he had gone to bed early. Ibe had followed him soon after. Ash suspected that the Japanese man felt awkward hanging out with a bunch of teenagers. While it was clear he cared a lot for Eiji, almost like he was his little brother, Ash figured the nervous and gentle Ibe was still a little intimidated by Shorter and himself. He was still here mostly because Eiji was here, and Eiji was here because… well, Eiji had personal reasons.</p><p>Speaking of Eiji, they’d left him the couch in the living room to sleep on. He had an entire room to himself, nobody snoring to keep him awake, the lucky git.</p><p>Now that he wasn’t going to awaken Shorter prematurely, although undoubtedly his Chinese pal would just fall back asleep again once he left, Ash rolled out of bed, grabbed his pistol from the bedside table, and tucked it into the back of his jeans. He pulled on his shoes and tip-toed out into the hall and down the narrow stairs, avoiding the creaky stair he remembered so well, third from the bottom, the one that always alerted Griff to him sneaking midnight snacks unless he jumped over it. Quietly, he slunk across the living room rug, his feet padding silently over the dusty pile. When he was a kid, he used to pretend the rug was lava, climbing over the furniture from sofa to chair to coffee table to avoid treading on it, while Griff crawled on the floor as a ‘lava shark’ chasing him around, prompting squeals of laughter. He paused, glancing at the sofa in question. Eiji was still asleep, still and silent and unmoving, curled on his side in a neat, compact way, the exact opposite to Shorter who not only moved a lot but tended to sprawl out everywhere, like a lanky starfish. Eiji, who looked younger than he was anyway even when awake, always looked especially child-like when he slept, with his fluffy bed hair and his long, dark lashes closed over his large eyes. He looked small and soft, unblemished and untainted. He exuded innocence with very little effort, and had an innate ability to soothe or calm people. Even just watching him sleep made Ash feel at peace. It was strange; he’d never really met anyone before who made him feel that way. Not since Griffin at any rate.</p><p>Not wanting to disturb him, he continued his soundless trek to the front door, carefully picked up the key from the telephone table, unlocked the exit as quietly as he could, and let himself out into the yard. By the front door was a bucket containing a dozen or so empty bottles – Jennifer had provided him them at his request the day before. He took the bucket and strode across the overgrown grass and around the back of the house to the remains of a rotting picket fence partially marking the yard boundary. Very little of the fence remained standing, most of it rotted into oblivion except for a few posts and a single crossbar, but there was enough there for his purpose. He lined some the bottles up, spacing them a couple of inches apart. Jennifer had provided them in all different shapes and sizes; most of them were beer bottles, but there was also a flat, square-shaped bourbon bottle, a jam jar, a green wine bottle, and a tiny glass pill bottle. After placing most of the bottles along the fence, he walked a fair distance away from them and then removed his gun from his waistband. He checked the ammo, opening the cylinder and making sure it was properly loaded. He had more bullets in his back trouser pockets; he always carried spare in case. Happy the pistol was correctly and safely primed, he snapped the cylinder back into place. He raised the gun, cocked the safety hammer, aimed… and fired at one of the bottles.</p><p>It exploded into fragments with a quiet but satisfying ‘plink’, masked by the loud pop of the gun.</p><p>He flicked the hammer again, the cylinder automatically rotating to a charged cartridge. Moments later, another bottle joined its brethren in glassware heaven, shards littering the grass around the fence. He destroyed most of the bottles, pausing briefly only to reload. He hit all but one of them dead centre – the remaining one he merely grazed and it stubbornly refused to fall off the fence, mocking him for his failure. He was getting rusty.</p><p>“Wow! Good shot.”</p><p>He turned to see Eiji, smiling slightly at him. He still looked sleepy; he had that cute, bleary-eyed thing going on, like when you poke a sleeping cat and it blinks at you and makes the ‘prrrbr’ noise. He had clearly just woken up.</p><p>“Sorry… did I wake you?”</p><p>“No. I was just waking up anyway.” Liar. He’d been dead to the world when Ash had crept past. Then again, it wasn’t surprising Eiji had heard him. Max and Shorter, an ex-soldier and a gang boss respectively, would likely be used to the sound of gunshots and would tone them out as white noise, but it was a foreign sound to Eiji and Ibe. He wouldn’t be surprised if the older Japanese man had awoken too.</p><p>“I’m losing my touch,” Ash sighed, looking at the remaining bottle on the fence. “I missed one.”</p><p>“You miss one?” Eiji said, disbelieving. Ash was at least 40 metres away from the fence. Eiji wondered how anyone could aim from here at all. He could barely see the bottles, although it didn’t help that he had a touch of myopia. It wasn’t bad enough to affect his eyesight too detrimentally – it hadn’t affected him jumping, for instance, and he could drive safely - but the horizon was often blurred to him and he found reading words and seeing signs clearly from a distance hard, especially in low light like at dawn and twilight. He refused to wear glasses to correct it for fear of ridicule. Sometimes he wore contacts, but since coming to America his prescription had run out and he'd been unable to source more daily lenses. He was making do without them; they irritated his eyes anyway. He noticed the bandage, still taped to Ash’s shoulder, covering the wound from where Arthur’s men had shot him the other day. “Does it not hurt shoulder? When you shoot?”</p><p>“Nah. This was just a scratch,” Ash shrugged dismissively. It was just a graze. It stung a little when the bandage got pulled on, as all grazes do, but it was healing fast and wasn’t very deep. He’d be able to take the bandage off in a day or two, and it didn’t affect his movement at all. He lined up his weapon, glaring down the sights at the centre of the offending bottle. He gently squeezed the trigger, and it exploded into oblivion. “You wanna try?” he asked Eiji.</p><p>“Eh?”</p><p>“Be my guest, if you want.”</p><p>“Really?” His face lit up gleefully, like all his Christmases and birthdays had come at once. Ash was a little disturbed that anyone would want to fire a gun that much, but knowing Eiji came from a place where gun ownership was unheard of and most of his experience came from the movies where the deadly weapon was masked in mystery and cool… well, it was understandable.</p><p>“I’ll make it easier for you. Let’s move nearer the fence,” Ash told him, beckoning him to follow him. He pointed to a spot about 10-metres from the fence. “Stand there. I’ll put another bottle up there for you.”</p><p>There were two bottles left in the bucket. He picked out the larger of the two and put it on the fence. He checked his gun as he returned to Eiji; he had one live bullet left in the cylinder, which was plenty for a beginner taking a shot. He handed the gun over; Eiji took it giddily but nervously, holding it gingerly like it was a grenade. He’d done the same thing the last two times Ash had given him a weapon, handling them with kid gloves, as if scared of it.</p><p>“The safety’s on, you know. It isn’t going to go off,” he told him. “Just don’t aim it at me – gun safety 101 is you only aim it at things you want to kill.”</p><p>“…Okay.”</p><p>Eiji adopted the world’s most awkward-looking stance. Ash had to try really hard not to laugh at him – he was slightly crouched, his butt pointing out, with stiff arms that were going to snap back hard with the recoil, and a poor grip that would most likely lead to him dropping the gun after one shot.</p><p>“What kind of stance is that?” Ash said. He stood next to Eiji and gently adjusted his stance, one hand around his shoulders and the other rectifying his grip. He was warm, and Ash could feel him trembling slightly with nerves and excitement… he was so close. He smelled really good too, like clean linen, washing powder, and something slightly floral; the scent of the fabric softener his jacket had been washed in. Was it a Japanese brand? He looked apprehensive. Ash thought that maybe he shouldn’t have reminded him that guns kill… or maybe he just didn’t want to make a fool of himself. The last time he had held a gun, he had frozen in fear and been unable to fire it. Shorter had taken over to save them both. “Straighten up and relax but grip it firmly, alright? It ain’t a BB gun – it has Magnum calibre bullets and you’re going to sprain your wrists that way. At this range, you don’t need to worry about the wind factor. You see the sights on the barrel there? Those little nubs? Line them up with the target, breathe, and pull the trigger.” Ash clicked back the safety and stepped away. “Squeeze lightly when you shoot. Take your time, aim carefully…”</p><p>Eiji took a few seconds to aim before firing the weapon. Ash winced as it kicked back, forcing Eiji’s arms up and back, and he gave a little cry in surprise as the gun fired with more force than he expected. He’d been way too stiff and his aim had been off. Even without looking at the fence Ash knew the shot had missed. “Beautiful,” he said sarcastically while Eiji pouted and muttered something unsavoury to himself in Japanese.  </p><p>“Good morning.”</p><p>“Ah! Ibe-san!” Eiji greeted his mentor. &lt;”Good morning!”&gt;</p><p>Ash turned to see the moustached man walking towards them, waving in greeting.</p><p>“Ash was letting me fire his gun,” Eiji told him, beaming.</p><p>“Yes, I saw,” Ibe said fondly, but he eyed up the pistol with a certain level of trepidation. It looked out of place in Eiji’s hands. “The woman we met yesterday just came by the house. She said breakfast is ready. Max is up already, but can you go and fetch Shorter?” Eiji nodded, passed the gun back to Ash, and traipsed off back into the house. Ibe watched him leave, a slight look of concern creasing his brow. The expression didn’t escape Ash’s notice.</p><p>“What is it, Ibe?” he asked with a smirk. “Don’t like me letting Eiji handle my gun?”</p><p>“No, it is not that,” Ibe said, shaking his head sadly. “It is just… you two are so different. Your background… your way of thinking…”</p><p>“I think you pamper him too much,” Ash told him, loading a single round back into the now empty weapon. “I don’t know what he went through back home and I guess you have your reasons, but wrapping him up in cotton wool isn’t going to help him. That’s why he can’t look after himself.”</p><p>“In our country, we don’t have to carry a gun to look after ourselves!” Ibe retorted, Ash having touched a nerve. Ash casually shot the lone bottle Eiji had missed off the fence – an easy task for him at such short range. He barely even had to aim the weapon.</p><p>“Well, unfortunately for you, this isn’t Japan,” Ash said bluntly, lowering the pistol. “Try telling someone that when they have a gun to your head, see how far you get.”</p><p>Ash walked away from Ibe feeling he’d been a little bit of an asshole to the poor foreigner, but also feeling that what he had mentioned was a home truth that needed to be said. If Ibe and Eiji were going to stay, they both needed to toughen up and be prepared to fight. He regretted dragging them into his mess – Eiji being kidnapped with Skipper had been unpreventable, but everything that had happened after that could have been avoided. The two were due to fly back to Japan after meeting Max and finishing their photoshoot; as it stood now, their visas were about to expire. If Ash hadn’t requested to see them and passed that note to Eiji in jail, they’d both already be home, but he had been desperate at the time and sending that message had been the only way he could do anything from within a cell. In hindsight, it would have been better for everyone if he hadn’t done anything. The inspector had pulled some strings and he’d been released from jail fairly soon afterwards. If he’d done nothing, Dino and Arthur may never have guessed that the Banana Fish sample was with Doctor Meridith. He could have contacted Shorter personally to retrieve the sample, or just gone to the damn place himself if it was safe enough. He wouldn’t have skipped bail because he was angry and looking for revenge, and Eiji would not have gone with him. Neither would Max have been dragged in – if he hadn’t allowed Garvey to have his way with him to get that pill capsule, they never would have had that conversation about Banana Fish in the hospital wing, and they wouldn’t have discovered each other’s true names and their connections to Griffin. Too many people were now involved due to his one stupid decision. Worse, if he’d left things as they were, Griffin might still be alive… best not to dwell on the past. It didn’t do to get dragged down into depression over what-ifs. What had happened had happened, and Griffin was probably better off dead anyway. Eiji especially was feeling guilty over the whole affair – he blamed himself for getting followed, and was seriously upset about the whole thing. If he’d been a member of his gang then things may have gone differently and Ash might have felt otherwise, but he wasn’t so Ash found he couldn’t blame him. He blamed himself for sending an amateur.</p><p>He wandered down to his Dad’s diner, hands in his jeans pockets, scuffing the grass with his shoes and pondering what he was going to do to kill time until they could leave.</p><p>*</p><p>Jennifer had provided a bountiful spread of bacon, eggs, sausage, toast and cereal for breakfast, the hot food served on a couple of large plates which they could help themselves to. Ash ignored the food, instead pouring himself a coffee and waiting for the others to arrive before eating. When Max came in with Ibe, he asked Jennifer for a copy of a Sunday paper if she had one, and she obligingly handed him a broadsheet. Ash asked if he could read it once he was done.</p><p>“Sure, but only if you promise not to do the crossword,” Max answered.</p><p>“I’ll make sure to fill it in especially for you, Pops,” Ash replied sarcastically. “Wouldn’t want you to get stuck on a hard clue now, would we.”</p><p>Shorter and Eiji entered shortly afterwards, Shorter immediately descending on the bacon like a starved raccoon and shovelling as much of it onto his plate as he could fit. Everyone else helped themselves to whatever was left. Ash nibbled at a piece of toast with jam on it, not really very hungry. He’d felt slightly nauseous from the moment he set foot back on the Cape. He didn’t really eat much as it was anyway, which probably wasn’t very healthy but it didn’t pay for someone in his… business… to be on the tubby side. Punters usually didn’t go for the larger boys much; he was worth a lot more if he was thin and nubile. The fact he still thought that way left a bad taste in his mouth, further suppressing his appetite. It would not take a lot to tip him into a full-blown eating disorder.</p><p>Thankfully, only Jennifer was in the diner this morning, beavering away behind the counter, his father choosing not to make an appearance, for which Ash was grateful for. He was really not in the mood to be dealing with him right now.</p><p>“So, how are you boys going to spend the next couple of days?” Max asked companionably.</p><p>“Well, I was kinda hoping Ash may show us around…” Shorter said.</p><p>“There’s not much to show you,” Ash murmured. “You’ve seen the house. It’s Sunday and off-peak season, so nothing will be open today in town. We have an empty field, and the beach. That’s about it.”</p><p>“Beaches are nice,” Eiji said. “There is one in Izumo called Inasa-no Hama. I would go run there sometimes. Inasa beach is holy beach too – it has shrine on it, and every year around November Shinto priest observe Kamiari festival, and light bonfire to welcome the many Gods who come discuss fate of human for next year. We also have local story - ‘Inaba no Shirousagi’ or the ‘White Hare of Inaba’. A hare wanted to cross the sea, so it trick shark into forming a bridge and walked across their backs.”</p><p>“Sharks?” Shorter asked, disbelieving. “How did a hare manage to trick sharks?”</p><p>“Some versions of the story say it crocodile the hare tricked, but usually shark used. Hare challenged sharks by claiming its clan was bigger than theirs, so sharks lined up in the sea to allow the hare to count their numbers,” Ibe explained. The fable was fairly widespread in Japan, so he knew it almost as well as Eiji did. “The hare hopped over pretending to count them, but really was just using sharks as bridge.”</p><p>“Mmn. And when shark realise they been tricked, they attack hare on Inasa beach and bite off all its fur,” Eiji continued. “Hare goes looking for help from a group of brothers, who are travelling to court Princess Yakami, but brothers scorn hare, tell him to bathe in sea and dry in wind, which hurt hare because salty, it dry out skin and not good for wound. Then one brother, Onamuchi-no-Kami, kindly tell hare it should bathe in river water instead, and then roll in reeds. Reed was full of… eto… we say ‘gama’…”</p><p>“Cattails,” Ibe translated.</p><p>“Oh, those things that look like corn dogs?” Shorter said.</p><p>“They literally explode into fluff if you snap ‘em,” Ash mentioned casually.</p><p>“Oh cool! I wanna try that!” Shorter said, excitedly.</p><p>“Hare get covered in gama seeds which stuck when it rolled. It fixed fur, turned it white. In gratitude it tell Onamuchi that he will be one to wed the Princess. Onamuchi later rename Okunimushi and he become marriage deity in Izumo,” Eiji finished.</p><p>“Our beach is nowhere near that interesting,” Ash said.</p><p>“I doubt anywhere in America is that interesting,” Shorter quipped. “Hares tricking sharks and people becoming marriage gods just doesn’t happen here.”</p><p>“I dunno, some of the Native American folklore is pretty exciting,” Max said over the paper. “We have just as many weird local legends and fables as Japan does.”</p><p>“I guess… although if it’s folktales you’re after, may I suggest China? Japan stole a lot of theirs from us anyway.”</p><p>“Cannot deny that!” Ibe laughed and Eiji nodded agreement.</p><p>“Our beach is just a tiny strip of sand. No gods or local legends or anything. There are nicer ones further along the coast – that’s where most of the tourists go,” Ash explained.</p><p>“Well, it’s still a different beach from the ones in New York,” Shorter shrugged. “I say you show us.”</p><p>“Urgh, fine,” Ash agreed reluctantly. “Pops, have you finished with that paper yet?”</p><p>“Give me chance, kid! I’ve still got to browse the sports page!”</p><p>“Never mind, I’ll read it later,” Ash sighed. “’Scuse me.” He left the table having barely eaten half the slice of toast.</p><p>“He is causing me worry…” Eiji voiced everyone’s opinion aloud. “He barely eat.”</p><p>“Well, what do you expect,” Max said, folding the paper up. “He’s wanted by the mob, his brother died recently, and then we go and drag him back to the place he ran away from. I’d be upset too.”</p><p>“He’s not as strong as everyone seems to think. He’s only human. All we can do is be there for him when he needs us,” Shorter said wisely. “You especially, Eiji.”</p><p>“What you mean?” Eiji asked, perplexed. Shorter just smiled cryptically.</p><p>*</p><p>Shorter and Eiji found Ash sat on the porch stairs of his old house when they returned after breakfast, staring out at the horizon. Eiji ran towards him when he saw him, coming to a halt in front of him and crouching down.</p><p>“Ash! Are you OK?” he asked, concerned.</p><p>“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ash replied, dismissively.</p><p>“You no eat. I worry,” Eiji told him.</p><p>“I just wasn’t hungry,” Ash shrugged. “I’m fine, Eiji. You worry too much.”</p><p>“But you not acting like self…”</p><p>“What, are you my mother now?” Ash snapped. “How do you know if I’m acting normal or not? You barely know me!” He felt bad immediately afterwards. First he’d been rude to Ibe, now he’d bitten Eiji’s head off too - he wasn’t going to be winning any American ambassador of the year awards from the Japanese any time soon, that’s for sure. Eiji was just being nice; he shouldn’t have said anything. Eiji flinched and made an unhappy humming noise in the back of his throat, taking on his kicked-puppy guilty expression. He stood up from his crouch and turned away from him.</p><p>“You are right. I do not…”</p><p>“I… I’m sorry, that was mean of me.”</p><p>“Don’t take it out on Eiji, dude,” Shorter said, reaching them. He took a seat next to Ash on the stairs. “You worry me too, and I like to think I know you pretty well.”</p><p>“Honestly – I’m fine!” Ash insisted. “Or as fine as someone can be, considering.”</p><p>“Yeah, point taken,” Shorter said. He patted Ash on the head, resting his hand there briefly. “Just know that we’re here for you if you need us.”</p><p>“Yeah yeah,” Ash grumbled, pushing his friend’s hand off his head. “I know.”</p><p>They remained there in silence, listening to the wind blow gently through the long grass. Ash noticed Eiji was fidgeting, like he wanted to leave but couldn’t without it being weird. Great. He’d made him feel uncomfortable with his outburst. That was the last thing he had intended to do. He sighed.</p><p>“So anyway… you guys wanted to check out that beach, right?” he said, standing up and trying to break the tension. “Let’s go then. I warn you, it’s boring! Just some sand and the ocean.”</p><p>“Well, that is kinda the definition of ‘beach’” Shorter quipped, also standing. “It sounds peaceful to me.”</p><p>“…I should probably stay here…” Eiji mumbled. Eiji had a bad habit of blaming himself for everything and then beating himself up about it. It wasn’t just Griffin’s death he blamed himself for either. He had also blamed himself for Skipper, saying if he hadn’t been in the way then Skip would never have been kidnapped. It was likely he was now blaming himself for them ending up here as a direct consequence of Griffin’s death and therefore blaming himself for Ash’s current mood. Now he’d been snapped at, backing up his masochistic hypothesis that he was somehow at fault and was only being tolerated by Ash, he was trying to avoid him.</p><p>“What? Don’t be stupid!” Shorter told him. “What exactly are you going to do here? You’re coming too, Eiji!”</p><p>“But…”</p><p>“No buts! You’re coming, whether you want to or not!” Shorter said, grabbing his arm. Eiji gave a brief squeak of protest, but didn’t fight it. Shorter whispered a brief message to Eiji in a quieter voice so Ash couldn’t hear him. “Ash is always a grumpy guts in the morning – don’t take what he said to heart, alright? He’s just feeling a bit low. He tends to get snippy with everyone when he gets depressed. You've not done anything wrong. Trust me; he would let you know if you had! So let’s do what we can to cheer him up.” Eiji nodded, looking visibly relieved.</p><p>Ash led them down the hill around the back of the diner and along a gravel path that cut down through a valley carved into a sandy cliff. They came out onto a private stretch of beach, golden sands leading to rolling Atlantic ocean waves that kissed the shore.</p><p>“Here it is- our crappy beach!” he announced. “Well, not ours. Nobody owns it. But it may as well be ours – the only way down here is that path, and that’s on my Old Man’s land.”</p><p>“Little bit cleaner and quieter than New York,” Shorter commented. “Kind of makes you want to run straight into the sea.”</p><p>“I have not been in Atlantic,” Eiji said thoughtfully. He was fidgeting again, but for different reasons now. The sea was calling him. He paused briefly, looking nervously at the other two boys before deciding he was an adult and could do what he liked. He pulled off his shoes and socks, peeled off his jacket and dropped it onto his footwear, and started rolling up his jeans. “I go in!” he announced.</p><p>The other two watched as he ran down to the water’s edge and waded out into the shallows. &lt;“HAAAH! IT COLD!”&gt; he laughed, paddling in the ocean as waves broke against his legs.</p><p>“Well, he’s certainly having fun,” Ash sighed, watching Eiji splashing happily, darting away whenever a large wave rolled his way. He took a seat on one of the sand dunes blown up against the cliff.</p><p>“So, when exactly are you going to make a move on Baeiji?” Shorter asked, an eyebrow raised knowingly as he sat down besides him.</p><p>“Baeiji?” Ash frowned.</p><p>“Yeah. Eiji Bae. Baeiji,” Shorter smirked. “It’s pretty obvious to me that you like him.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Ash asked, defensively.</p><p>“You treat him differently, man,” Shorter said. “You don’t trust easily, yet you trust him. You’re normally a cold-hearted bitch until people get to know your gooey centre, but with him you jumped straight from ice queen to overprotective mama bear. You don’t exactly hide it either.”</p><p>“Well, why wouldn’t I trust him?” Ash reminded Shorter. “He did jump over a four-meter wall for me using a rusty drainpipe, and he took a secret message out of jail for me without complaint. Then he stole a car from a cop of all people! I think he’s earned my trust by now.”</p><p>“Word on the vine is you let him hold your piece,” Shorter smirked. “And I don’t mean this morning. Alex told me you let him handle it within the first hour of meeting him. Dude, you never let anyone hold your gat and you know it. You liked him even then.”</p><p>“I have no idea why I let him hold it,” Ash said, a slight flush colouring his cheeks. “He just looked stupidly innocent and he said he’d never held a real one before, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.”</p><p>“Would you hand your weapon casually to a child?”</p><p>“Of course not!”</p><p>“Hmm.” Shorter shrugged at him, as if proving a point.</p><p>“Alright, I find him kinda cute, but that’s it,” Ash admitted.</p><p>“Only kinda cute,” Shorter pressed.</p><p>“I can’t really explain what it is about him,” Ash said. Eiji had bent down and was digging about in the sand. He pulled up a large sand dollar from the surf and examined it with a big smile on his face. “But… I dunno. I’m not especially attracted to him, but he makes me feel happy when he’s nearby. He doesn’t have to say or do anything, he just has to be there, being himself, and that’s enough.”</p><p>“Isn’t that just friendship though?” Shorter said. “I mean, I feel sort-of like that about you, so…”</p><p>“No. It’s more than that,” Ash shook his head. “It’s strange. It’s somehow different to what we have, and yet the same. I really can’t explain it. I just feel like I need to protect him, you know?”</p><p>“So, you wouldn’t protect me then?” Shorter joked, nudging Ash with his elbow.</p><p>“Argh, fuck, that came out all wrong!” Ash protested. “You’re my best friend - you know I’d die for you! You’re like family. I’ll be your wingman for life!”</p><p>“Yeah, feeling’s mutual,” Shorter said, smiling. “But I think I get what you’re saying. You and I are bros, no homo, we know where we stand, we look out for each other. But with Eiji, it’s like… your queer little butt has gone beyond the wanting to jump his bones phase and straight into the happy marriage territory.”</p><p>“Not really…” Ash said. “It’s nothing as sappy as that. I genuinely can’t put what I feel into words. I just know it isn’t sexual. Or I don’t think it is. Maybe it’s a different type of attraction altogether? It’s just… it’s nice to be with someone who doesn’t expect anything from you in return. And he doesn’t – I’ve asked him to do me so many solids, and he has not once asked for anything back. If anything he feels he owes me. It’s not normal for someone to be that generous and that… <em>Eiji</em>!”</p><p>“Both of us have saved his ass several times now though…” Shorter said pensively. “Maybe he just wants to settle some life debts?”</p><p>“It doesn’t feel that way to me,” Ash said. “It just feels… kinda natural?”</p><p>“Well, he means a lot to you, that is for certain,” Shorter said seriously. “Whether that’s love or romance or what it is, I dunno man. What I fear is that someone may use him against you. He’s not like us – he is a sitting duck on the street. And if something does happen to him, I’m scared of how you are going to react to that. You become irrational where people you care about are involved. Look what happened with Skip. You ended up in jail!”</p><p>“Honestly, that scares me too,” Ash murmured. “It would be better for all of us if he and Ibe went home.”</p><p>“But if he goes home, he won’t be here for you,” Shorter sighed. “Catch 22, dude.”</p><p>“Shorter… can I ask you a huge favour?” Ash asked quietly, gazing out at the sea, a breeze ruffling his blonde hair. To Shorter, he looked resigned, a little sad. This was going to be a big ask, he just knew.</p><p>“Depends what that favour is, but if it’s within my capabilities as a friend and a fighter then sure.”</p><p>“If… if anything happens to me… If we get separated or I’m taken out of action… Could you promise to keep him safe? Just until he can get back to Japan?”</p><p>Shorter looked at him for several seconds, his expression unreadable behind his sunglasses. He switched his gaze down to the sand at his feet. What Ash had requested was a pretty important and difficult thing to agree to. Eiji was a great person, but also a burden. He wasn’t sure if he wanted that responsibility… but Eiji meant a lot to his best friend… and if he was honest, he meant a lot to Shorter as well. He had taken a shine to him – he was a genuinely likeable person, kind and thoughtful, a little bit childish and naive but very responsible. If Ash was his twin from another kin, then Eiji was like his kid brother. He didn’t want to see him end up being kidnapped and tortured, or worse, which would be inevitable if he wasn’t shielded. Arthur knew his face now, which meant the Union Course would be after him soon, one way or another.</p><p>“…I promise dude,” he said eventually, in a voice little more than a whisper. “I will protect him with my life. You have my word.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>Eiji padded back to them a few moments later, sand stuck to his shins and most of his clothing now damp and smelling of saltwater. He smiled broadly, his hurt feelings from earlier forgotten, washed away by the playful ocean. He was also completely clueless about the topic of their conversation.</p><p>“I find many shell!” he declared proudly, holding up half-a dozen large scallop shells. “I not seen shell this big in Izumo!”</p><p>“Yeah, nobody ever comes down here to take them, so you often find loads of big ones,” Ash said. “I used to have tons in the house as a kid. Griffin used some to make a framed wall mosaic once. He gifted it to Jennifer before he went to ‘Nam. I dunno if she still has it.”</p><p>“You should come play,” Eiji told him. “Both of you! Sea is fun!”</p><p>“Eiji, I am seventeen,” Ash sighed.</p><p>“And I am nineteen. Not stop me! Only live once, so may as well have good time!”</p><p>“He has a point,” Shorter said. Already, the Chinese boy was unlacing his sneakers.</p><p>“Et tu, Shorter?” Ash accused.</p><p>“Why not?” Shorter smirked. “C’mon, it’ll be fun!”</p><p>“Act age for once!” Eiji told Ash sternly.</p><p>“Fine…” he conceded. He kicked off his converse and rolled his jeans up over his knees before following an excitable Eiji and a whistling Shorter down to the shore.</p><p>*</p><p>Ibe hadn’t seen Eiji around for a few hours. In fact, he hadn’t seen any of the trio since breakfast. It was now nearly noon, and he was getting a little worried. Ash knew his way around and Shorter would probably be fine, but Eiji had a knack for finding trouble or getting lost if you left him to his own devices too long. Max, relaxing back in Griffin’s room again and reviewing his Banana Fish notes, adding the photos taken from Griffin’s album to his already extensive clues, told him he worries too much.</p><p>“Shunichi, he is an adult – he’ll be fine! He’s probably with Ash,” Max shrugged. “They were talking about that beach earlier – they’re probably there. Ask Jennifer if she knows where it is. Oh, may as well take your camera too – you’re doing that project on street gangs, right? Try and get some snaps of Ash and Shorter outside the city – I think it’ll show off their age and humanity a bit more.”</p><p>“Eiji would probably like photo too,” Ibe admitted.</p><p>“And if all else fails, get yourself some nice shots of the Cape scenery,” said Max. “Tomorrow, we’ll be busy fixing the truck and by Tuesday we’re out of here, so may as well make the most of it.”</p><p>Ibe followed Max’s advice. Hanging his camera on a thick lanyard around his neck, he went and asked in the diner. Jennifer explained there was a hidden path down to the beach from the back of the diner car park. He followed it down through the cliff valley, and there he found the trio chasing each other around on the sand, apparently engrossed in some version of a game of tag. It settled his nerves, knowing they were down here engaging in harmless fun; he would much rather see Eiji acting his age, racing around on the sand laughing with other teenagers, than learning to fire a pistol. The same was true of the other two. Ash especially looked a lot less intimidating when he was smiling genuinely, and if anyone deserved to have a little bit of fun now and then, it was him.   </p><p>He sat on the same dune Ash and Shorter had their heart-to-heart on earlier, watching the trio play for a while as he fiddled with his camera settings. Next to him were the boys' shoes, a couple of jackets, and a sizeable heap of shells. They'd obviously collected them earlier. He concluded a few things about their tag play style very quickly just from observing too. Eiji was fast and agile and difficult to tag, which wasn’t surprising considering he was a former athlete. His main sport, the one he had competed professionally in, was pole vaulting, but he had done other track and field events as well. If he hadn’t had his accident and then consequently hit a professional wall, he may very well have gone on to do either pole vault exclusively, or else he had the option of the men’s heptathlon or decathlon. However, when he was ‘it’, the other two had no problems staying away from him, his tag style being ridiculously straight forward and his short height working against him. Shorter was slower and clumsier, easier to catch, but he had a long reach that was hard to dodge, and when he got into a sprint it was like trying to avoid or chase down a charging rhino. Ash was a little bit of a dark horse. He tended to limit his running around, preferring to dodge and weave at close range to avoid being tagged. When he was caught, he never stayed ‘it’ for very long. He lacked stamina, but made up for it with calculated and efficient attacks, able to read and predict the movements of the other two and pin them down, like a commander at war.</p><p>Candid photography had always been Ibe’s preferred method of photography; pictures taken when the subject wasn’t posing, and often wasn’t aware of the camera at all, tended to look more relaxed and have more of an impact. He did sometimes feel a bit of a creep, taking photos of people without permission. Generally, he asked permission in advance, and then tried to blend into the background so nobody would pay him any attention. His first break, for instance, had been of photos of Eiji in pole vault practice. He had some truly magnificent shots of him flying over the bar, contorting in the air – they had won awards and had been shown in a gallery in Tokyo for several weeks. Following that shoot, he had remained in regular contact with Eiji, and the two had grown fond of each other. Ibe felt their relationship was like that of an uncle and nephew, or maybe cousins with a slight age gap. Others had compared their friendship to that of an older and younger brother. Whatever it was, they were close. Eiji probably confided in him more now than he did his own family, writing letters and calling him to talk about his issues. After that, Ibe’s first couple of years as a pro photographer with domestic freelance work had been mainly contracts from sports clubs or weddings and events looking for a more laid-back feel for their portfolio. He eventually scored a gig with a media outlet, who would pay him handsomely to travel and take natural-feeling pictures of their chosen subjects. He had met Max during a brief stint following the NYPD, when he had been sent to obtain photos of the police department at work in the office on an average day for a Japanese magazine article. Max, who had media links from a segment he wrote weekly for an American paper, had allowed him to stay at their house while he was in America; he had still been together with Jess at the time, also a fellow photographer, and he had formed a firm friendship with both of them. Later, the same Japanese magazine, impressed with his pictures of the NYPD, had asked him to do a segment on youth crime in New York as a follow up. That job had led to him being here now. He’d brought Eiji along, after some persuasion to his parents, in an attempt to cheer him up after he quit vaulting. Eiji had showed just as much of an interest in photography as Ibe had in his vaulting, and had recently switched majors in college from his sports scholarship to an art course. Ibe asked if he wanted to be his assistant to gain experience in the field, and he’d practically bitten his hand off at the chance to come along.</p><p>The law stated that taking a candid photograph was fine provided it wasn’t exploitative, such as upskirt shots or long-lens nude photography, but you needed the subject’s permission if you were to publish it. He fully intended to share his shots with the boys later, so it would be fine as long as they didn’t outright object to it, and it wasn’t like he was taking photos of them committing a crime or doing anything terrible. It was all perfectly innocent. He got several decent photos in before Ash noticed him.</p><p>“Eiji, your chaperone is here,” he said, halting their game.</p><p>“Hah! Ibe-san!” Eiji had noticed him. He ran over, panting, the other two following. “Are you taking photo of us? How long you been there?”</p><p>“Ah! Ei-chan, you spotted me,” Ibe said apologetically. “Not long. I just came to see where you were. I am sorry. It is just… you looked like you were having so much fun. I could not help myself. I will stop, if it makes you uncomfortable.”</p><p>“I don’t especially care,” Shorter said. “Holiday snaps, right? Just send us a copy of the good ones – my sister would probably like them.”</p><p>“I’ve got clothes on, so it’s already an improvement on most photoshoots I’ve had with an old man behind a camera,” Ash shrugged. “I was a little surprised to see you down on the beach, but it makes sense; you wanna photograph street kids doing street kid things, not street kids glaring in a gang pose down the lens, right? I did give you permission to photograph me doing whatever, so go ahead.”</p><p>“But… that was so long ago now?” Ibe queried. The only time Ash had ever said OK to a photograph was when they first met, back in the Pink Pig bar, right before a riot started. He had been certain that if anyone was going to kick off about him taking a few shots, it would have been Ash. “You sure?”</p><p>“You came to the States to do a job, right?” Ash said. He kind-of felt he owed the guy an apology after being a bit of a dick to him first thing. Ibe was a cameraman, not a soldier, but a picture can say a thousand words. If a pen can be mightier than a sword, then a camera could be as deadly a weapon as a gun if it was in the right hands. Let him take his shots. “Like Shorter said, just send us a copy of the best ones. And make sure you get our good sides.”</p><p>“Well… thank you. I will do my best,” Ibe bowed low and respectfully. “I will become official California roadtrip photographer! And I will show you all photo before I send to publishers for approval. Nothing secret.”</p><p>“Hey, it’s all cool. In fact…” Shorter leaned in and grabbed both Ash and Eiji around the shoulders in a friendly group hug. “Here’s a road trip photo for you right here! Say cheese and throw up some V’s guys!”</p><p>What followed was one of the cheesiest friendship photos going – it wasn’t candid, but it was genuine, of all three of them making peace signs and grinning broadly. He took several more of the trio throughout the rest of the day, just being boys. He had a good one of Ash climbing a tree with Eiji, one of them all with ice creams after dinner, some of them playing in the sea, a nice one of them sunbathing in the grass… Ash especially had cheered up and relaxed considerably from breakfast time, and was showing off a much more age-appropriate side to himself. Out here, with Eiji, having fun, he didn’t look like a no-good punk at all. He just looked like a normal kid. In the end, Ibe couldn’t use most of the photos he took for the publication as Eiji was in them, but as far as holiday snaps go… well, most people don’t have their travel memories documented by a professional. There were some fantastic compositions utilising scenery, angles, and natural lighting, things most people don’t consider when taking a standard holiday photo. </p><p>Ibe was grateful that on arrival in California, Jess had allowed him use of her darkroom. Some of the photos he had processed that evening, and Shorter had posted a handful to his sister, as he said he would. The rest of his negatives he asked if Jess could post them to Japan for him, and left her some money to pay for the delivery costs. He said it would save him taking them back to New York, and he had a niggling suspicion that something may come up. That one small decision kept the photos safe during the events that followed, otherwise Ibe felt they would have been lost. All those memories, gone. His camera was taken, after all, and he barely escaped the mansion with his life. His favourite of the photos, even years later, when he would fondly flick through his albums lost in memories, would always be the cheesy peace signs. You can’t beat a classic.</p>
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